People who live and work in Cullowhee are being invited to share their opinions on growth and planning with a task force that is trying to crystallize a collective vision for the college-centric community.

When Cherokee Phoenix Theatres on the Qualla Boundary closes on All Hallows’ Eve, it will only have two movie screens. When it reopens the following morning, as if by some magic, the number of screens will have multiplied.

Adam Cartwright walked a thin line on the way back to his home in Cullowhee. He hugged the side of Ledbetter Road, feet on the white paint, and frequently stepping off the pavement onto the scrubby grass if he heard a car approaching.

Jackson County commissioners will discuss two sets of proposed planning regulations at an upcoming workshop at 2 p.m. on June 17 in the county’s Justice and Administration Building.

One of the items being considered is a new ordinance that was written addressing groundwater recharge in the county.

Regulations previously existed as part of a larger ordinance but have been separated out into their own draft ordinance. The recharge ordinance addresses issues like requiring impervious surfaces for development to ensure precipitation can be re-absorbed by the ground.

The other item on the agenda is a set of proposed changes to a section of the county’s subdivision ordinance that dictates how much of a development must be left in open space. The proposed changes are generally less stringent than what the county currently has on the books.

Although the changes have been approved by the county’s planning board, any changes to the laws must be passed by commissioners. The drafts of these ordinances were completed last fall, but commissioners have not taken them up until now. A public hearing on the proposed changes could be held as early as the commission’s second meeting in July and voted on that same day.

A mountainside in Macon County once destined for a housing development is now destined to be a community forest area comparable to the arboretum in Asheville.

The Hall Mountain Tract is a 108-acre swath of land overlooking the Cowee mound — a sacred Cherokee site — and the Little Tennessee River. Local conservationists and Eastern Band of Cherokee Tribal members have been pushing hard since 2005 to save the site from becoming a large subdivision.